Salty Martian Water Could Have Enough Oxygen to Support Life

Salty Martian Water Could Have Enough Oxygen to Support Life

Salty Martian Water Could Have Enough Oxygen to Support Life







		A recent study suggests that salt water buried just below the Martian surface could have enough dissolved oxygen to keep microbes, and perhaps even simple animal life, like sponges in places.

		This surprising conclusion could help reformulate the understanding of the scientists of the The habitability of the red planet., both past and present, said study team members. 

		"We live in exciting times," said lead author Vlada Stamenkovic, a scientific researcher at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "Especially because it still takes a lot more work to better understand the Martian habitability, I hope this will generate enthusiasm in the [scientific] community, in the world, to think of Mars as a potential place for life to exist, even today. "

The[[The search for life on Mars (a timeline of photos)]



		Underground water

		The water flowed generously through the red earth of Mars in the ancient past, as demonstrated by observations made by spacecraft such as the Viking orbiter of NASA, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and the robots of Curiosity, Spirit and Opportunity. In fact, many scientists believe that even the red planet counted on oceans billions of years ago.

		This surface water disappeared a long time ago, after Mars lost most of its atmosphere. and the transition to the cold and dry world we know today. But researchers believe that some humid things probably remain underground to this day, both in deeply buried aquifers and in brine bags, some of which may be just below the surface.

		For example, some scientists think that the seasonal dark Martian streaks known as lines of recurrent slope they are caused by the escape of such brines, which can remain liquid at temperatures much lower than "pure" water because of their salt content.





						


Scientists believe that dark streaks on some of the Martian slopes, known as recurring slope lines, that appear in NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image, can be caused by salty liquid water. The red planet could have bags of oxygen-rich brines just below its surface. 

            						    Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Univ. Of Arizona  


		Stamenković and his colleagues modeled the oxygen storage potential of the brine deposits near the surface, calculating the amount of dissolved O2 they could contain at various locations around the Martian globe. 

		This an interesting astrobiological question. Life as we know it does not necessarily need oxygen; The first organisms on Earth were anaerobic, after all, like a large part of the planet's modern microbial diversity. But oxygen is a source of energy so rich that its availability makes possible many interesting evolutionary routes, such as the increase of complex plant and animal life. (Almost all multicellular species known here on Earth breathe oxygen in some way).

		The researchers discovered that the brines from Mars could contain a large amount of oxygen, enough to support aerobic microbial life almost everywhere, if the requirements of these hypothetical insects on Mars reflect those of the Earth. And the models showed that the dissolved oxygen capacity varies a lot with time and from one place to another, because it depends on the temperature and, to a lesser extent, on the pressure. (The temporal variation is linked to changes in the obliquity of Mars - The inclination of its axis of rotation.) 

		Cooler temperatures promote a greater oxygen input to the brines. Therefore, the researchers determined that especially cold bags near the Martian poles could be rich enough in oxygen to support complex multicellular organisms such as sponges. Such "aerobic oases" may be common today above the 67.5 degrees north latitude and below the 72.5 degrees south latitude.

The[[Photos: The search for water on Mars]

		Astrobiologists, therefore, should not lift their noses in extremely cold environments just because relatively warm ones tend to be better for life as we know it here on Earth, Stamenković said.

		"Each environment has its pros and cons," he told Space.com.







    No planet is more loaded with myths and misconceptions than Mars. This questionnaire will reveal how much you really know about some of the most ridiculous claims about the red planet.









            




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    Myths and Misconceptions of Mars: Quiz









                    No planet is more loaded with myths and misconceptions than Mars. This questionnaire will reveal how much you really know about some of the most ridiculous claims about the red planet. 

            





            










                        



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		Stimulating the search

		There are some observational data that support the new modeling results, the study team members said. For example, him Rover of curiosity has detected manganese oxides during its exploration of Gale crater 96 miles wide (152 kilometers) from Mars. 

		A large amount of dissolved oxygen is needed to produce these minerals, said Stamenković. Here on Earth, he added, manganese oxides formed only after O2 began to persist in the atmosphere about 2.5 billion years ago, a milestone known as the Great Oxygenation Event (GOE).

		"Our model says that [manganese oxide formation] It is possible that it happens on Mars, due to the brackish environment and low temperatures, "said Stamenković. 

		The GOE was linked to the oxygen boom. photosynthesis, which produces practically all the oxygen in the Earth's air today. There is only a small amount of oxygen produced abiotic in the air of Mars, but that does not mean that none of the things can reach the buried brines. For example, in addition to trace atmospheric oxygen, radiation emitted by radioactive elements in Martian rocks could split water molecules into their hydrogen and oxygen, Stamenković said.

		In fact, radiolysis and / or other processes may have been important actors in almost the whole history of the Red Planet, which raises the possibility that Life of Mars - If ever it arose - you have had access to oxygen rich in energy for billions of years. And the same may be true in other worlds with cold and livable environments, such as Europa's moons Europa and Enceladus (which orbit Jupiter and Saturn, respectively), Stamenković said.

		"There are so many abiotic ways to create small but sufficient amounts of oxygen that then, at cooler temperatures, can be absorbed effectively, and could actually trigger evolution in a different way than we did on Earth," he said. "All this is hypothetical, but it's worth exploring."

		Both NASA and the European Space Agency (in association with Russia) intend to launch Rovers of life hunting towards Mars in 2020. But both robots will look for signs of past lives. The last, and until now only, spacecraft to search for the current organisms of the Red Planet on the Martian surface were the twin Viking 1 and Viking 2 landers from NASA, which landed in 1976.

		Stamenković wants that to change, and said he expects the new study, which was published online today (October 22) in the magazine. Geosciences of nature - It provides a small boost in that direction.

		"There is still a lot of Martian habitability that we do not understand, and we have had to send another mission for a long time that addresses the issue of subsurface water and potential potential life on Mars, and look for these signals," he said.



	Mike Wall's book on the search for extraterrestrial life. "Out there" will be published on November 13 by Grand Central Publishing. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us @Spacedotcom or Facebook. Originally published in Space.com.

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